Thunder from BHG is soliciting player input on their proposal for ratings decay.

We are looking for player input on implementing a decay system for Rise of Nations' rating system. We are going to be implementing some other changes, in addition to decay, but we're looking to see what players think might be too heavy handed or perhaps not heavy handed enough.
The current plan is to penalize players who aren't playing much in this fashion:

-25 points if you haven't played a game in two weeks
-100 points (125 total) if you haven't played a game in a month
-100 points for every month afterwards that a player does not play a game

Decay would not take a player below the 1600 level.

Thoughts and feedback would be very much appreciated.

As we've stated earlier, we'd like to see something that more accurately reflects "who the current best players are." This is the primary reason we established the O4B rankings. So people could see who the "best" players were.

I like their idea. It seems reasonable. My first though was that the only change I might suggest is that decay not take you all the way back to 1600. 1600 = newbie. If I used to be at 2300, then I wouldn't want to decay all the way back to ground zero. I'd like to suggest that half of the earned points above 1600 be subject to decay. However, even that change still means that someone like I_aM_AnDy will always be #1, even though he's not the best player and might not ever play again. On the other hand, it would take I_aM_AnDy ELEVEN (11!) months to drop back down to 1600, if he never played another game again. So in that case, it's not really so bad.

BHG, I think you've made a wise decision and I say go for it as is!

Also, as EC pointed out, that doesn't stop the smurf with only 4 games from being #8. I'd say raise the min number of games for provisional status (USCF uses 20) and/or don't display provisionals on the main board.

UPDATE: For the experts, there's a similar thread over at MFO.
posted by Tim at 7:22 PM